[Anthropological aspects of psychiatry]

Methods, diagnostic and therapeutic patterns in psychiatry have had, since its advent in the late 19th century, to evolve fast in order to reach the level of the other medical disciplines. Simultaneously, the "shrinking" of the world as a result of technological developments and increase in world population with the ensuing mass migration has meant that contacts between very heterogeneous cultures have intensified. This in turn has made it paramount for psychiatry to move away at least to some extent from its traditional Euro-American orientation and adopt a broader, global and transcultural approach to psychiatric problems. It will have to take into account the cultural backgrounds of the human beings it proposes to examine and treat.